The Third Option
by Snafu1000
Summary: Morrigan offers the Dark Ritual, but Trystan Cousland has a plan of his own. One shot. Repost.


_Author's Note: This was one of the one-shots that got deleted (see my profile for an explanation and please accept my apologies for the idiocy).  
_

_I'm definitely keeping this one as a one-shot. I'd been toying with this notion in the back of my mind for a while and it finally grew up enough to want out. Just an option that I wish had been available as an endgame choice._

* * *

"No." Trystan's response was unequivocal, but Morrigan still stared at him, certain that she had misheard.

"What do you mean, no?" she demanded incredulously. "I offer you the chance to save your life!" The unfamiliar and unwelcome wings of panic fluttered in her chest. She had thought the warrior would display the same brutal practicality and refreshingly logical self-interest that had drawn her to him in the first place. The thought that he might refuse had never crossed her mind.

"And I will take it," he replied, taking a step toward her, green eyes burning into hers with a hunger that had her body thrumming in response. He towered over her, his personality as commanding as his physical presence. Small wonder that the Landsmeet had so readily chosen him as King over that insipid fool of a Templar. "But you will not leave afterward."

Her eyes narrowed. "I am _not_ one of your subjects to be ordered about -"

She got no further before he was upon her cat-quick, pinning her against the wall, his mouth descending on hers, hard and demanding. Her arms wrapped around his neck, nails digging into the flesh of his shoulders through his tunic as her tongue battled fiercely with his. She would _not_ wilt in his arms, nor try to escape; she gave as good as she got, and they'd both had the marks to prove it on more than one occasion. It had been thus since the first time she had taken him to her bed. After several moments, he drew back slightly, but did not release her.

"You are mine," he whispered harshly. "Did you think you could bewitch me so thoroughly and then leave when you liked? Go and I _will_ follow you, if I have to take Thedas apart nation by nation in the effort." He lifted one hand so that she could see it, one finger rubbing at the ring that she had given him: the one that allowed her to find him and could in all likelihood be altered to allow him to find her.

"Such a romantic." Her voice was all sarcasm, but in truth his words and the look on his face stirred something within her, a place that only he could touch.

"I have my moments," he admitted with the surprisingly boyish smile that had disarmed any number of potential adversaries. They never saw the teeth behind the smile until he was ready for them to, when it was too late. "But every king needs a queen."

She couldn't help it; her jaw dropped. "You truly have lost your mind!" she announced. "Do you really believe that the Chantry would permit an apostate to be queen?"

"That will soon be none of the Chantry's concern," he informed her coolly, stepping away and taking her hand, leading her to the window; Denerim stretched out before them. And beyond that, Ferelden and all of Thedas. "My first act after my coronation will be to free the mages from its control. As long as you're not summoning demons in the halls of the palace, there should be no problems with the rest of the populace. Who will they support, after all: the priests who have fed them nothing but empty platitudes for centuries or the king who delivered them from the blight?"

"And the other Wardens?" she wanted to know. The whole idea was preposterous, of course, but Trystan would have a plan; he always did, and she couldn't help but be curious. "Loghain and the Orlesian? They will know that something is amiss."

"Sadly, they will not survive the battle." His face shifted into a mockery of solemnity, but his eyes were chips of green ice. She had suspected that he'd had his own reasons for bowing to Riordan's suggestion that Mac Tir be made a Warden. Rendon Howe's grisly death had not been enough to slake Trystan's bloodlust over the slaughter of his family. She wondered sometimes what he might have been like if they had not died as they had. Softer without doubt, and nowhere near as interesting. "They will be remembered as heroes...save for the times that I visit Loghain's grave in private to piss on it. The Orlesian Wardens will arrive sooner or later, and they'll be expecting that a Grey Warden will have died killing the archdemon. Two dead Wardens should be enough to prevent any questions from being asked."

A sardonic smile quirked his lips. "With Loghain dead, Alistair may even come back. I'd prefer a Grey Warden commander in Ferelden that I can control."

She shook her head bemusedly. He was a singularity, this son of Highever. Gifted with a charisma that drew men and women to him like iron filings to a lodestone, he could make each one consider him a bosom companion, show them kindness, benevolence, even friendship, but all the while he would move them like pieces on a chessboard to achieve his own ends. And woe to those who crossed him in his pursuit of those ends. Wynne and Leliana had rebelled when he had agreed to destroy Andraste's ashes in return for the power that the dragon cult had promised him. He did try to reason with them, but when they attacked, he killed them without hesitation or remorse, and the rest had believed them when he had told them that the bard and mage had been lost on the mountain.

Only Morrigan had known the truth, and despite the fact that she had fought on his side, she had half expected him to try to kill her for that knowledge. It was the only sensible course of action, after all, though they had been lovers for some time before they reached Haven. It was when he didn't that she began to suspect that she had a greater hold over him than he had let on...which was quite satisfying until the realization seeped in that he had taken hold of her in turn. _That_ had not been part of her plan, and now...

"And what of the babe?" she inquired, trying hard to maintain her pose of skepticism. If anyone could bring such a madly audacious plan to fruition, it was Trystan Cousland.

He grinned at her. "What exactly were you planning to do with him... or her?" he asked in a tone that made it clear that he already knew. Damn him.

"I did not know," she admitted with a rueful sigh. "The plan was Flemeth's, and her grimoire holds the details of the ritual itself, but frustratingly little of what her exact plans for the god-child were." She could all but hear her mother's mocking laughter; even dead and gone, Flemeth could make her feel like an ineffectual child.

"Then why?" He regarded her with an expression of puzzlement that might have been genuine but for the gleam of mirth in his eyes. "Raising a baby infused with the soul of an old god is an odd thing to do on a whim. Odd and risky, it seems to me."

Anger rose in her. "Twas no whim!" she snapped at him. "I may not have my mother's strength yet, but I am not one of those Chantry sheep! There is power to be had and I shall take it; is that so hard to believe?" She tried to stalk away from him, but he caught her by one arm and pulled her to him, her back against his chest, his arms around her waist and his voice low and insistent in her ear.

"Knowing you, my love, it's not...but I still don't." His lips traced fire against her ear, the side of her neck, and she moaned involuntarily, then muttered a curse, earning a chuckle from him. "Is it so hard to admit that you're doing it to save me?"

Oh, but he was an arrogant one! Arrogant and manipulating and - and oh, so _very_ good at what he did. "I..." She trailed off, losing her train of thought as he continued kissing her throat while his hands evaded her attempts at restraint to follow paths of their own. Very creative paths. "I..." Oh, he was going to pay for this; he was forgetting that this type of torment could be turned on him, as well. Or perhaps he wasn't forgetting; he seldom forgot anything, annoying a habit as it could be.

Then he was stepping away away, turning her to face him and backing her up until they were beside the window again, one hand catching her chin and forcing her eyes up to his. "Say it, Morrigan," he ordered her, green eyes afire with an intensity that was hypnotizing. "Say it."

She knew what he wanted her to say. She even knew why he needed her to say it first, but she couldn't help the rebellion that rose in her. She tried to shake her head free of his touch, but he held her firmly. A spell or two came to mind that would surely loosen his grip, but it was only postponing what was inevitable. He would not let her go until she said what he wanted...and she did not want him to let her go.

"I love you." She spat the words as though they were a curse, angry at the truth of them, at the weakness they signaled and at him for being the cause of both. She was rewarded with a kiss that made the one he'd given her earlier seem positively chaste, and for several savage moments, she let love slide to the background as she indulged herself with a heady (and much more practical) bout of lust.

He drew back again, his heavy breathing a satisfying proof that she could affect him every bit as strongly. "I thought I'd never again allow myself to care for anything that could be taken from me," he muttered, his expression one that she'd never seen. "I still don't know how you changed that, witch, but I love you, and I'll kill anyone that tries to take you from me. Be my queen and you will rule at my side as an equal. I offer you that power, along with my love."

"A tempting offer." She cocked her head, regarding him slyly. "But what does a Witch of the Wilds know about being a queen?" She kept her tone flippant, trying to hide the fear. She hated being laughed at, mocked, and she could already hear the noblewomen tittering behind their hands at some trivial matter of etiquette that she had butchered in her ignorance.

He chuckled. "You are already more regal than any other woman I've seen at court. I was raised in this world, my love, and I can show you what little you cannot learn on your own. Or do you really think that you cannot beat a bunch of spoiled nobles at their own games?"

"The question is not whether or not I can, but why I would want to," she retorted. She glared at him in silence for another moment. "I will _not_ host tea parties," she informed him, "nor learn to embroider or play croquet. And the first bard to assault my ears with an ode to my beauty shall live out the rest of his days as a toad in the palace gardens."

"Is that a yes, then?" he wanted to know with that insufferably smug look that he always wore when she was about to give him his way.

So she decided not to give it to him just yet. "You never did tell me what you plan to do about the child. As you so intelligently observed, raising a young god is not a task to be taken up on a whim."

"Well, I'll admit that I've not had as long to consider the notion as you have," he told her with a smirk, "but it seems to me that a young god could not ask for a stronger start than to inherit the rule of an entire kingdom...one in which his sire has slowly but surely eroded support for the Chantry, leaving the nation ripe for the start of a new religion."

"An ambitious plan." She couldn't help but be impressed at the speed with which he had developed it. "And you would do this for me?"

She was a bit surprised when he shook his head, the smirk fading. "Not just for you," he said, his face set in bleak lines. "The Maker has had his chance, and what did we get? Blights and wars, assassinations and Exalted Marches, while he sits back and does nothing and the priests make excuses about why we should keep on believing without a shred of anything from him to believe in. It's time to give one of the old gods another chance; they could hardly do any worse."

Oh, but they could. Morrigan was certain of that. She had absolutely no idea what this child with Urthemiel's soul would be like, and though she would never admit it, even to Trystan, the thought of finding out alone with that child in the wilderness had terrified her. To have Trystan with her, to have his strength, his intelligence united with hers...their chances of controlling the child's development would be greatly improved, and his notion of a god beginning its reign as a monarch was quite logical.

"Then I say yes."

"You'll marry me?" The look of happiness on his face was neither contrived nor smug. He truly loved her, and she loved him...and for the sake of that love, they would either doom the world or save it. Or be burned at the stake as heretics, which was by far the most likely outcome. In the back of her mind, she heard Flemeth's mocking laughter again. Closing her eyes, she entertained a marvelously vivid image of kicking the old bat down a very long flight of stairs, the cackling growing ever fainter.

She opened her eyes. "Not that you ever asked me _that_, but yes, since I suspect that you'll not change the customs of this land so quickly. But I will _not_ wear white."

He laughed, drawing her into an embrace, all confidence again. "Wear whatever you like, or nothing at all, if it suits you," he told her with a wicked grin. "From this day on, we make our own rules. Now," he tilted his head toward the bed, his smile becoming inviting, "about this ritual..."


End file.
